A hundred and fifty metres will outfit a restaurant. Sennichimae Dōguyasuji is a short covered arcade of shops selling cooking equipment, tableware, shop signage and the plastic food models that go in the window, and its historic use is entirely straightforward. Someone opening a place comes here and buys the whole kit in a single day, from stockpots to the curtain that hangs over the door and the lantern above it. That there is a shop devoted to making signs tells you what kind of street this is better than any description would. It sells not only the tools of a business but the appearance of one, which is a stranger thing to be able to buy off a shelf than it first sounds. Prices assume you are buying for work rather than for a kitchen at home, and the quantities assume the same; nobody sells a single item of anything if a dozen is the sensible unit.

Namba is immediately around it, with subway and private railway lines converging, so getting here requires no planning at all. Housing sits a little further out and the arcade quietens down early in the evening, well before Namba does.

You do not need to be opening anything for this to work on you. Walk the length of it once and you will find yourself costing out a room you have not rented, in a city you may not even live in, with a menu you invented on the way. The arcade dates from the early twentieth century and has always sold to the trade rather than to households. Osaka has an unusual density of small restaurants, and this street is one of the reasons that is possible. Knife shops here will sharpen what you buy and expect you to come back. It is a dangerous street in that particular and specific way.